


The Warm Shoulder

by thetransgirlwhoneverwas



Series: Fictober 2020 [18]
Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:27:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27139370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetransgirlwhoneverwas/pseuds/thetransgirlwhoneverwas
Summary: Lea has a question for Aqua, one that leads to a discovery that Aqua has been keeping mostly to herself for some time.
Relationships: Aqua/Elsa (Kingdom Hearts)
Series: Fictober 2020 [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1952200
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

It had been years since Aqua had walked through Radiant Garden and just admired the scenery. Literally, in fact, it had been ten years since she had been here. Much had changed in that time, she noted. She knew that it had once been taken over by evil and transformed, but she had never seen it when it was Hollow Bastion. Radiant Garden was all she had ever known the place as, and it was Radiant Garden she enjoyed the sights of now.

She walked through the centre and towards the back streets, away from Ansem’s old study, taking a rest in a tunnel she didn’t really remember seeing. She looked out of what could, she supposed, be considered a window, although it was more likely just a hole blasted in the wall, to the site of where she had been told the Battle of the 1000 Heartless had taken place. It had involved more than one thousand, she knew, but according to the stories, Sora alone had defeated at least one thousand by himself, and the name had stuck. How much had happened to this place over the years. How much she had missed. How much she still had to catch up on.

“Hey, Aqua!” 

Aqua turned and saw distinctive spikes of deep red approaching her. Looking down she saw the person wearing the hair, finally dressed in something other than the black coat she had honestly grown sick of seeing. They had only met recently, and even then only briefly, but they had gotten along quite well. They had certainly made quite a team in the final battle against the Seekers of Darkness.

“Hi, Lea,” she greeted him back. “What brings you here?”

“Admiring the view?” he asked, not answering her question. “It’s a pretty good place to see it from.”

“Yes, it is,” she agreed, turning back to the view. She leaned down, resting her folded arms on the low wall in front of her. “Were you here for this? The battle?”

“Nah,” Lea walked up beside her and mirrored her pose. “I’d left the Organisation by then but I still wasn’t technically one of the good guys yet.” His tone sounded apologetic, but still with that distinctive confidence that Lea never went anywhere without.

“Well, if it helps,” Aqua smiled, “based on when people have told me it happened, I think I slept through it.”

Lea laughed, and Aqua joined him in doing so. “Well, we’re here now. We woke up when it mattered, right?” he said.

“That’s right,” Aqua agreed, and turned back to the view. “Are you here for the view as well?”

“Actually,” Lea said, but then he stopped for a second. Aqua glanced in his direction and, though his pose was just as confident as ever, his expression had become a lot more nervous. “I wanted to ask you something.”

“Oh?” Aqua asked. “What can I do for you?”

“Well, I mean,” Lea pushed himself off the wall, then changed his mind and leaned his back against it, folding his arms in a way that he probably thought looked very dignified. “We haven’t known each other for that long, but we’ve gotten along pretty well, right?”

“I’d say so, yes,” Aqua agreed, although somewhat hesitantly.

Lea shifted his pose again so now he was leaning sideways against the wall. “We made a pretty good team at pretty short notice, and I was just thinking...I mean…”

Lea trailed off and Aqua raised her eyebrows tentatively, assuming where this was going and not entirely liking the direction.

“Like, I thought I’d ask, so,” Lea shifted nervously several times before he stopped, took a very deep breath, took another deep breath, and finally said it. “Do you wanna go on, like, a date sometime? I mean, only if you want to, and, I mean-”

Aqua cut him off with a chuckle. “Lea, take another breath.”

Lea obeyed and took another breath, appearing to be somewhat less nervous now that he had actually said it. He leaned back against the wall, that telltale confidence back in his voice. “So, how about it?”

Aqua chuckled again. “We do make a good team, and I like you. You’re fun to talk to.”

Lea’s expression brightened into a visage of hope.

“But no.”

Lea’s expression dropped.

“Sorry. But you’re...well, not really my type.”

“Oh,” Lea responded, blinking with obvious disappointment, but he didn’t make any attempt to cajole or convince Aqua. In fact, Aqua noted he accepted it without question. 

“Sorry,” Aqua apologised again with a matching smile.

“No, no, that’s fair,” Lea responded, somewhat effectively staying cool about it. “But when you say not your type? Not into redheads?” he continued, but Aqua could tell he was just making light of the situation. He genuinely didn’t seem very upset, which she found commendable.

“A bit broader than that,” Aqua responded with a sly smile.

“Ah, I get it,” Lea smirked back. “Not into guys who used to be bad guys, I got ya.”

“More not into guys in general,” Aqua winked.

Lea blinked in surprise. “Huh. Fair enough.”

He made no further comment on the matter. Aqua wasn’t entirely sure what she had been expecting, but she was certainly glad he hadn’t made a big deal of the revelation. The subject had never really come up much, she realised. In fact, while she knew she had been a lesbian for a long time and hadn’t intended to hide it, she realised that Lea was the first person besides Terra and Ven that she had told. It felt liberating, she realised. It was one thing to be friends with someone, but another thing entirely to have them know and understand a core part of her identity, especially one that had taken a while for her to come to terms herself, and accept it with no hesitation.

She turned back to the view and thought about how to thank him when he initiated a new conversation.

“So,” he said. “Me and Aerith. Think I’ve got a chance?”

Aqua turned to him and saw that he was wearing the same confident smile as ever, but it was tinged with a layer of understanding, and she in turn smiled back.

“Absolutely not.”


	2. Chapter 2

Aqua blocked a swipe from the Nobody’s scythe and pushed back against it, stabbing forward with her Keyblade and hitting it with enough force to throw it back into a tree, which shook and dumped a fresh coating on snow on top of the monster, which rushed at Aqua again, only to be met with a deadly blast of ice magic.

Aqua thought it was appropriate given their surroundings. She had been patrolling the worlds with the other Guardians of Light, finishing off any scattered forces left from the war between them and the Seekers of Darkness, and while most worlds had been left mostly alone, Arendelle still was plagued by Heartless and Nobodies aplenty. 

A sound, just behind her, but she was ready. Aqua leapt into the air and the Heartless’s claws swiped harmlessly at where she used to be. It looked up to her and aimed an attack, but she held out her hand and focused. The snow beneath the monster’s feet rose up around its legs and held in place as Aqua gracefully somersaulted, building momentum to slash down at it with her weapon, defeating it in a single stroke. She nearly lost her footing as she landed from the force of the attack; she had spent so long wielding Eraqus’ Keyblade that she wasn’t used to the lighter balance of her own Keyblade anymore. She found her feet, but another Heartless attacked, charging at her with huge and sharp horns. Before she could be hit, however, the Heartless was struck by a plume of fire suddenly manifesting underneath it, launching it into the air, where it met a swift end at the Keyblade of a charging Lea.

“Thanks!” Aqua said.

“Don’t talk; fight!” Lea responded with a cheeky smile, and Aqua laughed. She had said the same thing to him the first time he had tried to flirt with her, and he hadn’t let her forget it since they became close friends.

Aqua responded by pointing her Keyblade and blasting an encroaching Heartless flying towards Lea with a bolt of lightning that arced outwards and struck several more flying Heartless following behind it. As if in response, proving that he too was capable of several different kinds of magic, Lea landed and twirled his Keyblade around in his hand, before flicking it upwards to create a vortex of wind underneath another group of charging Heartless, suspending them all in the air. Aqua glanced at Lea, who winked back at her.

“Shall we?”

“Let’s go.”

The two pointed their Keyblades at the group. A wave of water cascaded from Aqua’s, swirling around the Heartless and forcing them closer together, just as a burst of flame erupted from Lea’s. The two forces coalesced into a ball of water and fire magic, and when it vanished there was no trace left of the creatures.

“Not bad, huh?” Lea congratulated Aqua.

“Pretty good,” Aqua complimented him back.

Before they had a chance to continue the conversation, more commotion came from behind them, and they turned in sync to see yet another horde of monsters approaching. They prepared for another fight, raising their Keyblades and preparing to launch more powerful magic, but before they could a wave of icy wind blew over the entire group, covering them all in a thick layer of snow through which they could barely move. Another gust of wind blew from the same direction, and Aqua added her own magic into it, turning each flake of snow into a deadly shard of ice that pummelled the approaching creatures until one by one they all faded back into the darkness from whence they came.

“Where did that come from?” Aqua questioned.

“I don’t think I care,” Lea responded. “Whatever it was, it just made our job a whole lot easier.”

“Hello?” came another voice from the direction of the wind, a warmer sound than any Aqua had heard since she came to this world. A woman, adorned in a flowing blue dress completely unsuitable for the snow emerged from behind one of the myriad trees. “I heard you fighting those monsters.” She looked at Lea and Aqua’s Keyblades. “Those weapons...are you, by any chance...friends of Sora?”

Aqua tried to say something, greet this new figure, answer her question, but suddenly her voice didn’t work properly, and the sound that came out of her mouth couldn’t even be approximated to mean anything. Lea gave her a befuddled look before turning back to her. “You know Sora, huh? Guess you must have met him when he was here. Did you pull that trick with the ice back there?”

“Yes, that was me,” she confirmed. “I wanted to help defend my home. My name is Elsa. And yes, Sora helped me defeat those monsters before.”

“Well, what do you know?” Lea said to himself. “Call me Lea, and that one’s Aqua.”

Aqua tried to introduce herself, say something, but it didn’t work. Her voice simply would not obey her commands. She instead settled for a wave that was not meant to be as shy as it was. Lea shot another puzzled look her way.

“Well, I think that’s the last of them,” Lea said, looking around as if that would confirm his assertion. “We need to be getting on, but it was nice seeing ya.”

Elsa nodded. “I need to get home as well, I’m not entirely supposed to be up here. I’m meant to be at a royal function, but they can be so boring,” she smiled to herself. “Still, Anna will be wondering where I am. I’m glad I saw you, though. Please, pass my regards onto Sora.”

She turned and walked away, and Aqua was for a second glad she had found herself unable to speak. Best she didn’t know that Sora was missing, and might never be found. Not yet, anyway. Sora had helped so many. Knowing he might be gone forever would be devastating to so many people.

Lea rounded on Aqua. “Hey, what was that about? You froze up back there, I’ve never seen you do that.”

“I, um,” to her relief, Aqua found she had control of her voice again. “I don’t know,” she lied, and Lea saw through it immediately.

“Come on, what’s wrong,” he asked, sounding genuinely somewhat worried. “What was up with Elsa that made you all weird like that?”

Aqua channelled her training, her years of discipline, her knowledge of powerful and ancient magics and the ability to manipulate the very fabric of reality to stop herself from blushing hard, and utterly failed to do so. Lea’s expression turned in a snap from a worried frown to a ribbing smirk.

“Oh,” he stretched the syllable out for several seconds. “I get it.”

“I just…” Aqua tried. “I...she, well-”

Lea’s smirk only grew bigger as Aqua entirely failed to play it off.

“I was just distracted by her magic,” Aqua lied again. “It was impressive, that’s all.”

“Oh, of course,” Lea kept up his knowing expression. “And her dress had nothing to do with it, right?”

Aqua blushed even harder, even through her willing herself desperately to stop.

“Are you gonna be like this every time we meet a pretty lady doing this?” Lea asked in mock despair. Aqua didn’t have an answer except to keep blushing even harder. Lea laughed in response.

“Well,” he said. “We’ve got a few more worlds to clean up, but I’m sure we can find time to stop by here again, say hi to Elsa again. See if we can convince you to actually say “hi” this time.”

“Please don’t tell anyone else about this,” Aqua asked.

“Not a word,” Lea promised, and Aqua didn’t believe it for a second.


	3. Chapter 3

The last time she had been to Arendelle she hadn’t had a chance to really admire it, having only seen it in the distance. Now, however, Aqua stood at the base of a bridge made of solid ice, staring in wonder and amazement at the enormous, intricate, beautiful palace created from the very same ice. Its smooth outer walls reflected the sun and cast pale blue and purple light upon the snow surrounding it, but Aqua could see through an open door a room where the light was reflected in deep red and resplendent gold cast across the ice. The spires rose in perfect diamond symmetry towards the sky, and shining pillars held up a large balcony from which, Aqua imagined, one could see the entire mountainside.

Aqua took several steps back as she stopped craning her neck upwards, trying to get a better look of the entire palace, but her foot hit against something and she lost her balance, falling backwards. She hit the ground and the loose snow slid underneath her, the slope of the mountain speeding her fall towards a sheer face and off the side of the mountain. Aqua continued to tumble, preparing to fall off the edge, but a sound of rushing wind met her ears and she slammed into a solid wall of snow, which stopped her fall and dissipated as soon as it had appeared.

Aqua picked herself off the ground and brushed the snow from her clothes, looking around. That sound, the snow appearing from nowhere. She knew it had to be her. The woman from before, Elsa, the one whose magic connected her to the ice and snow. She looked, but she couldn’t see anyone around, and there was nowhere to hide this high on the mountain. She sighed, but as she did so she heard a familiar voice.

“Hello? Are you alright?”

Aqua followed the voice and saw her, Elsa, in an ornate turquoise suit, standing on the balcony of the ice palace. Aqua stepped towards her, but Elsa took a brief running start and vaulted over the railing of the balcony. Aqua started towards her, preparing a spell to break her fall, but it was unnecessary, as Elsa held her hands downwards and a cloud of snow materialised at her feet, allowing her to drift gently down to the ground, where she ran to Aqua, concern on her expression. 

“Are you alright?” she asked. “I saw you falling towards the cliff.”

“I-I’m okay,” Aqua reassured her, trying not to let her tongue seize up as it had in their last encounter. “Did you make that wall of snow?”

“Yes,” Elsa confirmed. “I couldn’t just let you fall off that cliff.”

“Thank you,” Aqua smiled, and decided not to tell her that such a fall would have been entirely harmless. Even outside her ability to cast spells and manipulate the elements, her passive magic neutered the effects of long falls and momentum completely. “I was admiring your palace when I, um, tripped. It is your palace, I assume?”

“Yes, it is,” Elsa said. “I...don’t live here anymore, I came here during a bad time in my life. But I still come back here when I need some time away from my kingdom. Some time alone.”

“I understand,” Aqua tried to hide her disappointment. “I’m sorry to interrupt, I can leave if you need.”

“No, no, please, don’t go,” Elsa stepped forward again and held her hand out, going for Aqua’s own, but she stopped when Aqua stopped turning away. “I’d like your company. Besides, I assume you’re here because there may be more monsters?”

“No, there shouldn’t be any more Heartless,” Aqua reassured her. “I think Lea and I defeated the last of them.”

“I’m grateful for that at least,” Elsa said. “But then, if I may...why did you come to visit?”

“I came to see you,” Aqua said automatically, and immediately regretted it. Elsa held a hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle, and Aqua was too busy wishing she had said literally anything else to notice her blushing.

Aqua rushed for a plausible explanation. “I mean, I didn’t really get a chance to thank you for helping us. I’m also intrigued by your magic, I haven’t seen many types of magic like yours before.” It wasn’t a lie, but it also wasn’t the main reason she had come back, and Aqua suspected that Elsa definitely knew that.

“Well, I built the palace using my magic,” Elsa said. “And I can also do this.”

She held her hands up to her sides and the snow at her feet started to glow, the light spreading up her legs and body, and down her arms. When the light faded, the turquoise suit was gone, replaced by a light but vivid blue and lilac dress that reflected the light of the sun in the same way the magnificent palace did. Aqua watched the transformation with wonder and amazement, and didn’t even notice that she had started blushing until after Elsa had seen it. She realised she was staring and looked away, shaking her head back to reality.

“That’s…” she didn’t even know how to describe what she had just seen. “That’s amazing.”

“Thank you,” Elsa beamed. “Would you like me to make you one too? I don’t mean to be rude, but...you’re not wearing a lot.”

Aqua suddenly realised that her own outfit looked incredibly unsuited for the weather, but as with the long fall, her magic kept her protected from the elements. “Oh, thank you, but I’m alright. My own magic keeps me warm. The cold never bothered me anyway.”

Elsa failed to stifle a giggle.

“Hmm?” Aqua asked.

“Nothing,” Elsa replied, waving it off.

Aqua realised she was staring again, and turned back to the palace. “So you made this with your magic too?”

“Indeed,” Elsa said. “Would you like a tour?”

“I...I’d love one,” Aqua turned back to Elsa and saw that she was beaming at her again. Elsa held out her hand. Aqua took it, and despite having seen ice and snow conjured from that same hand, it was the warmest touch she had felt in a very long time.


End file.
